Family reunited with lost cat nine years after he disappeared

Paul and Sadia French's cat, Frankie, went missing from their home in Southend in 2008

Nine years later 'Kitty' was brought to Battersea Dogs & Cats home

When his microchip was scanned he was found to actually be Frankie

Lindsay Quinlan, Head of Catteries at Battersea urges cat owners to microchip pets

If you've ever had a family pet go missing, even for only a few hours, then you will know how heartbreaking it is.

So can you imagine how it would feel to have your beloved cat go missing only to turn up 45-miles away in Battersea Dogs & Cats Home nine years later?

Paul and Sadia French's cat, Frankie, went missing from their home in Southend, Essex in 2008 when he was still a young cat just starting out in life.

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Desperate to find him, the couple put up posters, called the local council and asked around their neighbours but had no luck finding him. As time passed they realised they needed to accept that Frankie was gone forever.

'We spent a lot of time posting leaflets around the area and knocking on doors but with no luck except for one reported sighting a few weeks after he disappeared,' Paul tells Prima. 'It probably took us two or three months to realise we wouldn't see him again. Every time we saw a cat with similar colouring we would think of the night he disappeared and the mystery of what had happened to him.'

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And though they had given up searching, they couldn't bring themselves to fully move on. 'We couldn't bring ourselves to attempt replacing Frankie,' says Paul. We put all his things in the garage rather than throwing them out, which was where they stayed.'

Frankie back relaxing in his original home

Battersea London

However fast forward nine years and an 11-year-old cat is being brought into Battersea London because the owner can no longer look him for personal reasons.

The cat they called 'Kitty' had been taken in as a stray, and Kitty's owner had taken care of her new-found feline friend for seven years before a change in circumstance meant she had to reluctantly give him up.

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On being taken in by Battersea, staff carried out their usual checks on the animal and found he had a microchip. You can probably guess what happened next?

Yup, Kitty was actually Frankie, and so the staff at Battersea called the number on the chip.

'We were out celebrating Father's Day when we received the call from Battersea London,' Paul explains. 'We were so shocked when they told us they had found our Frankie but felt no hesitation in coming in. It was like going back in time.'

Battersea London

And when Frankie finally came home it was a 'jumble of different emotions' for the family: '[We were] delighted to see Frankie again, curiosity to know what his life had been like since we last saw him, uncertainty as to whether he would remember us. We took his old bed with us in case this helped bridge the years but in the end he seemed quite happy to see us. Both Sadia and I are so thrilled to get Frankie back in our lives.'

Frankie's story serves as a real warning to pet owners about the importance of microchipping. It is currently a legal requirement for dog owners to have their dog microchipped however, the same does not apply to cats.

'Only 61% of cats that come into Battersea are microchipped,' Lindsay Quinlan, Head of Catteries at Battersea, says. 'This makes it incredibly difficult for us as a rescue centre to try and reunite lost pets. It's also important to remember to update the contact details once you have microchipped your pet.'

Contact your local vet to find out more about getting your feline-friend microchipped, so that their story remains a tale of nine lives and not nine years.

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